The tour kicks off in Las Vegas on New Years Day; Also Aaron Lewis to be featured in The "Outdoor Channel Series, Dream Season Celebrity;

Aaron Lewis, the acclaimed frontman for Atlantic recording group Staind, has unveiled details of the first leg of his upcoming solo acoustic tour, now in its sixth year. The hugely successful tour saw sold-out shows last year, including a stint at the Mohegan Sun, where he sold more than 8000 tickets. The dates will begin on January 1st, 2010 with a special New Year’s Day concert at the Green Valley Ranch Las Vegas in Henderson, Nevada. From there, Lewis will traverse the continent, capping off his first leg with two nights at the Borgata Casino in Atlantic City, NJ. The second leg of the tour will kick off on February 25th at Hammond, Indiana’s Horseshoe Casino (see attached itinerary). Full itinerary for the second leg will be available soon.
In other news, Lewis will be appearing on Drury Outdoors’ popular Outdoor Channel series, Dream Season Celebrity, set for broadcast in 2010. Dream Season Celebrity marks the seventh season of Dream Season, a reality hunting show that chronicles competing teams from across the country. This season will feature a twist by adding four celebrity team members who are paired with “average joes” with everyday jobs. An avowed outdoorsman, Lewis’s participation in the series will raise funds for the Catch-A-Dream Foundation, which grants once-in-a-lifetime hunting and fishing experiences to children with life-threatening illnesses. For further details, please visit www.druryoutdoors.com and http://catchadream.org .

Staind is currently traveling North America alongside the recently reunited Creed. The dates – which follow Staind’s headline role on this summer’s enormously successful “Stimulate This! Tour,” a four-band bill designed to offer fans maximum value at a minimal price – began earlier this week and will continue through mid-October. Lewis’s powerful performances at these shows have already demanded attention from critics: The Dallas Morning News recently said of him, “Lewis, who didn’t speak much but never minced words, proved that incendiary introspection makes for memorable music.” Please visit www.staind.com for complete information on the tour.

2008’s The Illusion of Progress, marked Staind’s fourth consecutive studio album to debut in the top 3 on the Billboard 200 and features the #1 alternative rock song, “Believe.” The iconic hard rock group’s decade-long career has seen worldwide album sales in excess of 13 million and five #1 singles spanning three different radio formats. The Illusion of Progress is the band’s sixth studio album and the follow-up to 2005’s RIAA platinum-certified Chapter V.
For up-to-the-minute news and information, please visit www.staind.com .


AARON LEWIS
ON TOUR 2010

JANUARY

1 Henderson, NV Green Valley Ranch

2 Las Vegas, NV Aliante Casino

8 Reno, NV Silver Legacy

9 West Wendover, NV Peppermill

15 Temecula, CA Pechanga

19 St. Charles, MO Ameristar St. Charles (St. Louis)

21, 22 Vicksburg, MS Ameristar Vicksburg

23 Robinsville, MS Bluesville @ Tunica Horseshoe



FEBRUARY

5 Uncasville, CT Mohegan Sun

12 Verona, NY Turning Stone - (Double header two shows in "ONE" night.)

13, 14 Atlantic City, NJ Borgata

25 Hammond, IN Horseshoe Casino* (first date of leg

Do you like pocketbooks? Do you want to be unique? Well have I got a link for you. This link will lead you to a wonderful person who is related to Aaron Lewis. She sells custom made pocketbooks, she can turn your Staind t-shirt into a bag all your friends will envy. She will custom make any bag you want, so if you are creative this woman will be your new best friend.
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Aaron Lewis chooses his tattoos wisely. Sitting in the famous Hart & Huntington tattoo shop in Las Vegas, he's getting a piece that he's wanted for awhile. "I'm getting this Aztec, Tibetan-style skull. When I put my hands together, the whole skull will be on the front of my hands, but only half of the skull will be on each hand. I just have to decide whether or not I should really do this to my hands before I play this evening," he laughs.

Beyond displaying some righteous ink, Aaron is one of the 21st century's most poignant songwriters. With Staind, he speaks to a generation of kids through cathartic and compelling hard rock. Songs like "It's Been A While" and "Mudshovel" remain bona fide anthems. On Staind's latest opus, The Illusion of Progress, Aaron bares his soul once again. This time, powerful acoustic cuts like "Tangled Up In You" illuminate Aaron's knack for melody and his unbridled honesty. However, his solo acoustic concerts are really something to behold.

Every January, Aaron grabs an acoustic guitar and embarks on a solo tour of the United States. During these shows, he plays stripped down versions of Staind songs, covers and whatever fans might request. It's an intimate and unique experience for fans because Aaron's personality truly comes through on stage. He's down-to-earth and humble beyond belief—more so than you'd expect from a multi-platinum artist such as himself. However, he hasn't changed all that much from when he first picked up a guitar as a kid. In an exclusive interview, he spoke to ARTISTdirect.com about his current acoustic tour, his forthcoming solo album, Staind, the American dream and much more.

During the solo shows, you strip down the songs and truly show their power. What excites you the most about doing these shows? Is there a certain freedom to them?

I get to play songs that the band doesn't usually play live, and I get to strip them down to their guts. It's the skeleton of the song that I'm playing. That skeleton is what the song was before everything else was added on top of it and it was turned into what people are used to hearing. It's that freedom. I never have a plan. I never have a set list. I don't have any sort of idea about what I'm going to do when I walk out on stage.

It's just you, the music and the crowd. Is that especially liberating?

It's so random! It's perfect [Laughs].

What initially inspired you to do these tours?

I did it before I was in the band. I've been doing it since I was 17 or 18. It's what I watched my dad do when I was a kid. Doing these acoustic shows really brings everything full circle for me. I'm coming back to how this love affair with music that I have was started.

Did you start off by doing open mic nights around Massachusetts?

No, I went out and got shows. I played bars, coffee houses and wherever the hell there was to play.

Acoustic songs have always been part of your identity as a songwriter. You had "4 Walls" on Tormented and "Excess Baggage" on Dysfunction.

It always has been. More acoustic-based material is where I come from, anyways. I didn't own an electric guitar until 14 Shades of Gray [Staind's fourth album]. I didn't even have a guitar with steel strings on it, until I was like 14 or 15. I learned on a nylon-string classical guitar. It was my dad's guitar, and I got that guitar when my dad got a new one.

"Tangled Up In You" came about on one of your acoustic tours. Do you have a lot of time to write during these tours?

That song happened during sound check. I was just messing around with the song, and my tour manager asked, "What song is that?" I said, "I don't know. I was just messing around with it." He was like, "Man, I thought that was off a record or something." I thought, "Cool, maybe I should put a little focus into this." During a couple more sound checks, I came up with what the song is, and I started playing it. People liked it. Playing it first live and getting a reaction from people is a good way to gauge whether or not it's worthy of going on a record.

Are there any songs that are particularly enjoyable for you to cover?

No, I don't even want to play all of the covers that I'm known for playing anymore. It's funny because everyone's yelling songs at the shows, and I can hear everybody. It gets a little confusing at times. I'll try to pick up on a song that I haven't played or I don't hear people yelling all the time, and I'll try to play that. I'll fail miserably at times. I'm not going to lie [Laughs]. I'm not sitting here and saying I'm capable of playing all of the songs that I try to play, but I give it a shot anyway.

Is it easier to connect with the crowd when it's just you and an acoustic guitar on stage?

It's a totally different thing. It's me hanging out on a stool with my guitar. You get me instead of getting what you've gotten in Staind all these years, where it's still me but I don't feel like I have anything to say in between songs. I've never been the frontman trying to be a frontman. I've always felt uncomfortable trying to be that "frontman guy," so I haven't. I've fought off people's suggestions pushing me to change who I am. I never have been that guy, and I'm not going to start now. In Staind, there's no reason for me to crack jokes in between songs or do all the cliché things that every frontman has done since Elvis. I go out there and let the music talk in Staind. When I'm sitting there on a stool, I'm by myself and I've got to entertain people for an hour and a half. As quiet as the acoustic set is, on top of that, if I didn't say anything in between, people would be going to sleep [Laughs].

Have you been writing for your solo record?

I've got songs that I've written on solo tours, and they're kicking around. There are definitely plans to record them. I haven't been able to actually start working on it yet. I look forward to it. It'll be the next thing that comes out from us.

Your lyrics are so poignant. Would you ever want to do a poetry book or a novel?

I don't know. I've been approached about doing a biography or something like that. I've always thought that just putting the words of the songs in poetry form on paper for an entire book of the songs' lyrics would be cool. Maybe, that'll happen.

Very rarely have critics realized how positive your music truly is. Even since Tormented, you've always captured glimmers of hope. On your acoustic shows, you capture a spectrum of emotion too. Do you think it's important for fans to realize that?

One of the things that I've been the most disappointed about in my career is how everybody has just painted me as this miserable, brooding, down and always-complaining lyricist. They're just missing the point altogether. I'm very lucky that I have the most amazing fans in the world. They get the point. It doesn't go over their heads. I feel good about that. I've gained security in feeling good about that.

Staind's one of the few from hard rock's last big boom to weather the trends. You came out of the Korn revolution, and you've entered the 21st century stronger than ever. It's a testament to the songwriting more than anything else.

That, and it's a testament to how amazing our fans are. They haven't allowed the changing of trends and the changing of seasons in the music business to force us to get swallowed up and go away.

"I never wanted to create some false impression that I would have to live with for my entire career. I've always just been myself."

What have you been listening to lately?

I listen to a lot of patriotic talk radio, and I listen to country music if I'm not listening to conservative talk radio. That might surprise you [Laughs].

Over the past few years, people—especially "entertainers"—have become so negative about America. We're still the land of opportunity and the land of the free. More artists need to respect those opportunities and that freedom.

It's such a liberally driven industry. You don't find many conservatives in the entertainment industry. I'm not conservative on everything, obviously. I'm pretty known for enjoying my pot. That doesn't mean that I don't believe in family values and that I don't believe we're losing our kids. We've completely lost touch with the generations we're bringing up underneath us. We've lost touch with so much more than that too—as far as what's going on with this government and what the people of this country are looking to for change. The change that we're looking for is not Barack Obama. The change we're looking for is the Declaration of Independence. It's been sitting right there under our noses for hundreds of years. Our system has just been skewed so far from what it was originally supposed to be that it's not working correctly. If we just go back to what the original design was, everything would fix itself.

I completely agree. One man is not the answer. There's a system of freedom that this country was based on. That system will make everything right. Values and ideas need to be upheld. America is family values and working to make something of yourself—not giving anybody a handout.

I don't think it's about the government controlling more. I don't think it's about the government being bigger. I don't think it's about the government living higher off the hog off of our hard-earned dollars. The average American works 120 days each year for free because the government takes it all out of the 365 days. It's ridiculous. Where do you think the money is going to come from that Barack Obama is planning on utilizing and giving tax breaks through? It doesn't make any sense. You don't punish people for being successful. You don't punish people for being wealthy. They create the jobs for the middle class and so on and so forth. That's how the system was set up. Capitalism with a conscious is what it needs to be.

Everything's perpetuated by so many lies and so much hypocrisy.

What kills me over and over again is we pick our representatives from the same dirty, bought-and-paid-for, hidden agenda people to replace the last person that was a bought-and-paid-for puppet. We keep picking from the same pool of degenerates, for lack of a better term.

The people who have worked for their success and started something from nothing are never represented.

I'm certainly not trying to sound pompous, I don't think I possess that ability, but I am the American dream. I grew up in a trailer park. We moved from a trailer park to a log cabin that my dad bought for $1500. This is what it's all snowballed into. Look what I'm doing. Look where I am now. That is the American dream. I am American. I'm Italian, Welsh, English, German, Russian and Polish. My daughters—you can throw in French and Irish in there as well. That's as American as it gets. America is the melting pot.

You've always been honest too. That honesty is the most important thing, and it's what kids need to see the most.

It's all I've ever been. I never wanted to create some false impression that I would have to live with for my entire career. I've always just been myself. If anything, over the years, I've become more comfortable in my skin than I was to begin with.

The Pulse of Radio reports: STAIND frontman Aaron Lewis is getting ready to hit the road for his annual post-holiday solo acoustic tour, which starts on Friday (January 2) in the Green Valley Ranch resort in Henderson, Nevada. Following that and some more touring with STAIND, Lewis hopes to begin recording his first solo album in the spring. Although he wants to produce the project himself, he said that those plans could always change. "I'll be doing it at my house in my studio, and I'm very open-minded," he said. "If we get to a point and I'm just like, 'You know what? To take these songs to the next level I've got to get (STAIND producer) Johnny K. to come up here and help me out a little bit,' then that's what I'll do. But as it stands, I'm gonna attempt to do it myself."

STAIND will head to Europe for a month of dates beginning in mid-January as the group continues supporting its latest album, "The Illusion of Progress".

Confirmed Aaron Lewis tour dates:

Jan. 02 - Henderson, NV - Green Valley Ranch Resort & Spa
Jan. 03 - Las Vegas, NV - Aliante Casino
Jan. 05 - Fort Myers, FL - Barbara B. Mann Perf. Arts Hall
Jan. 06 - Clearwater, FL - Ruth Eckerd Hall
Jan. 09 - Reno, NV - Silver Legacy Resort Casino
Jan. 10 - West Wendover, NV - Peppermill Concert Hall
Jan. 15 - Lemoore, CA - Tachi Palace Hotel & Casino
Feb. 13 - Atlantic City, NJ - Borgata Hotel, Casino & Spa
Feb. 14 - Atlantic City, NJ - Borgata Hotel, Casino & Spa
Feb. 18 - Durham, NC - Durham Performing Arts Center
Feb. 20 - Verona, NY - Turning Stone Resort & Casino
Feb. 21 - Verona, NY - Turning Stone Resort & Casino
Feb. 26 - Niagara Falls, NY - Bear's Den
Feb. 27 - Niagara Falls, NY - Bear's Den
Feb. 28 - Uncasville, CT - Mohegan Sun

Aaron will be hitting the road soon for his solo acoustic shows. There are still many pre-sale tickets and VIP packages still available. Tickets are very limited and available only to members of Dysfunctional Fan Club on a first come, first served basis.

In addition to regular tickets, there is a VIP Package option for these shows:

Aaron will be performing a few solo, acoustic shows in February 2009 and members of Staind's official fan club, Dysfunctional Fan Club, will be able to purchase presale tickets before the general public.  These are shows you will NOT want to miss.  In addition to regular presale tickets, fan club members will have the option to purchase VIP Packages that come with a special Meet & Greet with Aaron. Presales will be available for the shows below starting TODAY, Wednesday, December 10th at 3pm EST!  Perfect reason to join Dysfunctional Fan Club now. Go to www.dysfunctionalfanclub.com to become a member and get more info.

2/13/09 - The Music Box @ Borgata (Atlantic City, NJ)
2/14/09 - The Music Box @ Borgata (Atlantic City, NJ)
2/26/09 - Seneca Niagara Casino (Niagara Falls, NY)
2/27/09 - Seneca Niagara Casino (Niagara Falls, NY)

Aaron Lewis solo dates are going on sale TOMORROW:

1/2/09
Green Valley Resort & Spa
Henderson, NV
On sale tomorrow!
TICKETS

1/3/09
Aliante Casino
North Las Vegas
On sale tomorrow!
TICKETS


The dates below have just been announced:

1/9/09
Silver Legacy Casino
Reno, NV
On sale October 4
TICKETS

2/26/09
Bears Den at Seneca Niagra Casino & Hotel
Niagra Falls, NY
On sale December 15
TICKETS

2/27/09
Bears Den at Seneca Niagra Casino Hotel
Niagra Falls, NY
On sale December 15
TICKETS

Additional announcements to follow. Check out www.staind.com for the most up-to-date information about Staind and Aaron Lewis out on the road!

As you know, Staind is going out on tour this summer with 3 Doors Down, but did you know that they will also be HEADLINING a number of dates too? Don't miss out!

STAIND'S SUMMER HEADLINE DATES:

7/04/08 - Muskegon Summer Celebration - Muskegon, MI
Go to www.summercelebration.com for tickets

7/08/08 - Capitol Federal Park at Sandstone - Bonner Springs, KS
Go to www.ticketmaster.com for tickets

8/5/08 – Casper Event Center – Casper, WY
Go to caspereventscenter.com for tickets

8/10/08 – Lonestar Amphitheater – Lubbock, TX
Go to www.frontgatetickets.com for tickets

8/12/08 – Concrete Street Amphitheater – Corpus Christi, TX
Go to www.ticketmaster.com for tickets

8/13/08 – Belton County Expo Center – Belton, TX
Go to www.texasboxoffice.com for tickets

8/15/08 – Kiefer UNO Lakefront Arena – New Orleans, LA
Go to www.ticketmaster.com for tickets

8/16/08 – BancorpSouth Center – Tupelo, MS
Go to www.bsarena.com for tickets

8/17/08 – Nashville Riverfront Park – Nashville, TN
Go to www.ticketmaster.com for tickets

When you're finished buying tickets check out the new webisode posted today!